Li Xiaofeng: Dream of the Yong Le

(jiří macek) He is the only fashion designer who can dress the past. With his unique Dream Series collection, Li Xiaofeng cultivates the legacy of ancient Chinese art and takes us back to the times when the secrets of porcelain making were known only in China. He builds his dreams from shards. His work can be found in the renowned Virginia Miller ArtSpace Gallery in Miami.

Before Johann Friedrich Böttger found out how to make porcelain in 1708, Europe had to admire fragile works of art that only came from China. The forty-three year old Li Xiaofeng, hailing from the Beijing province, seems to know everything about the history of his country. His creations take us back to the roots of Chinese art from the 10th century. He embroiders leather underwear with porcelain shards bearing traditional decorations of the Song, Yuan, and Qing dynasties. Thus, he makes unique clothing, abiding in literary and historical allusions: Don’t you know who Yong Le was? Was it a woman?

The storage room at his studio is allegedly full of shards from broken plates and other ceramics. As he says, some of them come from the damaged decorations of the royal palace. First, Li sorts the shards carefully according to the colour and age. Then, he assembles them into incredible spatial mosaics in the form of clothes. The cuts, or the structure, together with the shards, deliberately lead us both to the stylish present and the medieval past.

“One must remember that contemporary Chinese art was born from ancient Chinese traditions,” he points out in the title of his very first exhibition outside the Far East.

Visitors can see this exhibition together with large paintings by Cao Xiaodong in the ArtSpace Gallery, which was founded by Virginia Miller thirty-five years ago this February.

The ArtSpace Gallery systematically tries to discover new names and has launched the international careers of many artists from Latin America and the Caribbean. It regularly goes back to the past in its exhibitions. For instance, in 1984, visitors could see and buy exceptional photos from the turn of the 19th and 20th century that were taken by William Henry Fox Talbot, who is considered to be the father of modern photography thanks to his invention of the calotype process. I do not mention his name by coincidence in relation to all the artists who have ever exhibited in the ArtSpace Gallery. Apart from having published the very first book illustrated by photos (The Pencil of Nature, 1844), Talbot patented the invention of photo printing on porcelain in 1849. The world is small and porcelain is at its heart.


Li Xiaofeng: Dream of the Yong Le, Porcelain fragments from the Ming, Qing, and Yuan dynasties, 31 3/4 x 29 1/2 x 13 3/4 inches, (81 x 75 x 35 cm), 2006-2008, courtesy of ArtSpace/Virginia Miller Galleries, Coral Gables (Miami), Florida USA.

Li Xiaofeng, Dream Series No. 1, Porcelain fragments from the Ming and Qing dynasties, 68 1/8 x 39 1/2 x 16 1/2 inches, 2006-2008, courtesy of ArtSpace/Virginia Miller Galleries, Coral Gables (Miami), Florida USA.

Li Xiaofeng, Dream Series No.2, Porcelain fragments from the Ming, Qing, and Song dynasties, 68 1/8 x 39 1/2 x 16 1/2 inches, 2006-2008, courtesy of ArtSpace/Virginia Miller Galleries, Coral Gables (Miami), Florida USA.

http://www.virginiamiller.com/gallery.html

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